Look what my honey made me for my Birthday! A super duper strong keyboard “drawer” on really strong full extension slides. It’s got room for my mouse and my new Mac keyboard (even though my computer is a “mad Dog” PC, this keyboard is the BEST when it comes to fast typing!)

Gift suggestions for quilters anyone? Here are some lists to get you started:

• Amy of Park City Girl: Ooh, I love my EQ6, but here’s anew addition: Amy Butler has a set of projects that run on this software, I’d love to play with this!
• Natalia of Piece n Quilt: My favorite on her list the New Noel book with lots of really awesome stocking patterns.
• Vicki of Sew Inspired: Simple, but oh so useful flat flower head pins, yup I definitely need more of these!

I’m sending my hubby this list right now!

Don’t forget my Rainbow Sale going on all this week!

Now, I’ve gotta get back to my day job! sigh…

Gifts for Quilters! is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I’ve talked about photography here before – and if you’re a blogger (or not!) you know how hard it is to take a good photograph to accurately show people you’re talking to through the computer what exactly you want to show them! But I really wanted to get more of my scarves up in my Etsy shop, so I’ve been plugging away at how to photograph them!

Back in June I did a guest post on Simply Robin’s Blog about my very simple light box I rigged up to take photos of my Going Green Journals. Well, I needed something larger for my scarves, so my hubby had time to rig up something for my from PVC (Bill Huber has a nice tutorial here, we did something quite similar). So here’s my setup (note: the good camera is in the shot, so this is my cell phone!)

It’s a frame made from PVC. Draped down the back, across the table and then down the table front is a large piece of white polyester fleece for a smooth, white backdrop.  A piece of white, quit weight white fabric is draped up the sides and over the top, this diffuses the light. I’ve got 4 clamp on lights – 2 are huge, “trumpet top” CFLs. I learned about them here: (this is a GREAT resource about photographing quilts!) I needed more light so I added 2 more regular CFL’s, 2 more of the trumpet tops are on their way to me as we speak! This creates a white glowing box with very little shadow.

I then turned off the flash, set my white balance and started clicking. I still had to tweak a little in Photoshop, but much less than I had before. Mostly I just played with the levels to get the whites whiter. Kathy Mack has some awesome tips about tweaking digital photos on her blog, this is the one that talks about levels, but they all are worth a read, and written by a sewist, not a photographer, in language we quilters can understand!!!!!

Now that I’m happy with my picture taking process, I can start doing a better job of trying to sell my scarves online. One issue there is that I sell so many scarves locally, I would sell a scarf listed in Etsy. BUT I’ve now changed my listing to read:

Each scarf is uniquely hand-dyed, using a specific set of mixed colors. Description of the particular palette here.  Although I may have one in stock, I also may need to dye one just for you, so it may take as long as 7 days for me to ship it. Patterns & distribution of colors varies from scarf to scarf, convo me if you’d like a picture of your exact scarf or the exact timing on your own piece of “Candied Fabric”.

I’ve also started creating palette shots (inspired by Vickie Welsh and Daisy Janie) to help me describe the colors in the scarves.

Daffodil Sky is a combination of a yellow-gold, 2 shades of blue and teeny bits of a leafy green.

Wild Rice is a delicate mix of gray, tan, light pink with a hint of gold. Earth, Wind & Fire combines an earthy brown, with an ethereal blue and a vibrant red & gold.

So, what do you think? Is this a good way for me to showcase my scarves online?

Photographing Scarves: Happy at Last! is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I’m now off to sew 30 of these babies by…Saturday! Yikes!!!!

Guest Blogging is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I’m officially in a loop. I’m stuck, and feeling very overwhelmed. In fact, I’ve just placed Jose Gonzalez “Heartbeats” ON a loop on iTunes, hoping the peacefulness will help.I’m sure some of this is hormones. Some of this is accumulated crap from a busy year at work. Some of this is the stress and exhaustion oozing from my husband: we’ve had some layoffs at the University that have again created more work for him. HE needs a vacation, and instead he has MORE work to do this summer.

Add to this the fact I’ve just purchased Adobe CS4 design premium to get me up to speed for setting up my awesome (in my mind) website. Until this time, all my photo prep has been done in a REALLY OLD version of Photoshop elements, my layout work in either MSWord or MSPublisher, my vector drawing in EQ6, and my last web-coding was done 7 years ago in MS Frontpage. My friends, the world has changed.

I know that a lot of readers of this will be scratching their heads and saying “man, she is BEHIND the times” or “okay, she’s making do with what she has”. OTHER readers will be saying “??? who knew there were all those different programs???”

I am a computer geek, who’s had less and less time to spend understanding what she uses, but now there’s a wall in front of me that I have to break through. I need to understand how this new set of programs works – and that’s confounding me, because I have all this art I want to make, I have some house reorganizing to do, oh and a family to pay attention to…

So, I’m spinning my wheels. I don’t have a plan on how to fix this, except maybe try to have a conversation with my hubby about how I prioritize this next month – he’s very helpful, when I can correctly verbalize where my stuckness is…perhaps I’ll just ask him to read this post!

Here’s a stab at me playing with photoshop:

I live in S. CA, and this beautiful rose garden came with our house. We’ve had an amazingly cool May/June so far, and they are doing fantastically

I have an awesome DSLR, a Nikon D40, which I am still just beginning to learn to use. Today I decided to use the Macro setting:

Here’s what happens JUST when I use “Autotone” in Photoshop:

HOLY CRAP! Is this a stupendous picture, or am I hallucinating?

Any old who, here are a bunch more pix, that I was randomly trying out all sorts of little tweaks on. But after I discovered the autotone feature, I couldn’t, in my blind stumbling, do any better than that.    Miles to go…

Overwhelmed is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

Juki tl-98Q, along with feet and thread storage

What brand and model do you have?

• Juki TL-98 Q!

How long have you had it?

• 11 months

How much does that machine cost (approximately)?

• I’ve seen it on the internet for ~$850. I bought it from my local dealer for $1000 or so. They let me spend a whole hour making a trial totebag on it, and answered all my questions in detail. Love the service, and they’ve got a great technician, so it was totally worth it to pay the higher price!

What types of things do you sew (i.e. quilting, clothing, handbags, home dec projects, etc.)?

• Quilting, home dec, bags

How much do you sew? How much wear and tear does the machine get?

• 2-20 hours a week, probably averages out to 4/5 hours each week…? Maybe more?

Do you like/love/hate your machine? Are you ambivalent? Passionate? Does she have a name?

• Love it!  No, it’s just “My Juki”

What features does your machine have that work well for you?

• GREAT stitch quality, great SPEED, tremendous power – I’m making lots of bags from canvas and layers of interfacing and quilt batting, this machine pays no attention to it!

Is there anything that drives you nuts about your machine?

• I wish the feet were easier to change – you have to unscrew each one, and I switch feet multiple times/bag.

Do you have a great story to share about your machine (i.e., Found it under the Christmas tree? Dropped it on the kitchen floor? Sewed your fingernail to your zipper?, Got it from your Great Grandma?, etc.!)? We want to hear it!

• Last June I finally had a few minutes to myself during regular business hours and I took an example of a handle I was topstitching down to my local shop to ask for advice on how to get the underside to look as nice as the top side. While I was chatting with the ladies about needle size and bobbin thread, their technician came out and joined the discussion. Gunter (not his real name, but he talks and looks like a Gunter…) said to me: “You, you have a Mercedes. But you would not move rocks with a Mercedes”. He was telling me that to use a Bernina to sew through all those layers for bag after bag after bag, I was going to wear it out faster! AAAHHH! I’d never considered that! So, I quickly came to the realization that the Juki was the way to go! Funny thing is, I’d wanted a machine like this for years, mostly for the increased room under the arm…but since I COULD quilt my quilts with my Bernina, I didn’t NEED to have that extra room. But hearing I was wearing out my “Mercedes” machine – eekks! Just the incentive I needed. And, with my little business becoming profitable, I could actually (just) afford to buy the machine with the money I’d made sewing! Voila – justification complete!

Would you recommend the machine to others? Why?

• Yes. Great stitch quality, very sturdy construction, knee lift, needle up/down, thread cutter, incredible speed (1600 spm).

What factors do you think are important to consider when looking for a new machine?

• Knee lift, needle up/down, speed (spm)

Do you have a dream machine?

• ?? Along with my Bernina (see this post), I’ve got all my bases covered! Maybe if I had a huge studio and lots more money, I’d look into one of the mid-size machines that mount in a table with the body to the back so there’s room for hand controlled free motion quilting on both sides of the head. But it would be an addition to the 2 I love now!

My 2 machines in the table my husband & I built for them

Tutorial for sewing machine table here.

Juki TL-98 Q Meme is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern